Meghan Markle Reveals What It's Like to Be a Biracial Woman in Hollywood

After penning a moving letter on the racism she and her family have experienced throughout their lives, Suits star Meghan Markle is speaking out on the topic even further. In the April issue of Allure, which features stories about diversity, inclusion, and the politics of skin color in beauty from 41 women of color, Markle opened up about the assumptions and inequality she’s faced in Hollywood based on the color of her skin. For the actress, whose mother is African-American and whose father is Caucasian, this ranges from being mistakenly categorized during castings to having her freckled skin airbrushed and whitewashed in shoots.

“I have the most vivid memories of being seven years old and my mom picking me up from my grandmother’s house,” she tells Allure. “There were the three of us, a family tree in an ombré of mocha next to the caramel complexion of my mom and light-skinned, freckled me. I remember the sense of belonging, having nothing to do with the color of my skin."

It was when Markle left her home, however, that these familiar comforts were challenged. "I took an African-American studies class at Northwestern where we explored colorism; it was the first time I could put a name to feeling too light in the black community, too mixed in the white community. For castings, I was labeled ‘ethnically ambiguous.’ Was I Latina? Sephardic? ‘Exotic Caucasian’?”

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It's not just the preconceived notions about her skin color that have led Meghan Markle to speak out against colorism; her freckles, too, have literally been erased from portraits of the actress. “Add the freckles to the mix and it created quite the conundrum," she tells Allure. “To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot."

What she has to say about them, though, is encouraging for anyone who’s struggled to embrace and love their own beautiful spots: "For all my freckle-faced friends out there, I will share with you something my dad told me when I was younger: ‘A face without freckles is a night without stars.’”

Patrick Demarchelier

Markle’s account is one of the many must-reads in Allure’s story, “The Beauty of Diversity,” which features women including Jessica Alba, Priyanka Chopra, Bethann Hardison, Zazie Beetz, Eva Longoria, and Samira Wiley — to name a few — as they get honest about diversity and inclusion. Read it in full here.